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Voting out anti-abortion MP Rachael Harder

Conservative MP Rachael Harder rises during question period in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Wednesday, Sept.27, 2017. (Adrian Wyld/CP)

Mutiny was preordained, but Rachael Harder had to sit through the motion anyway. Passport photo-strong, she showed no emotion, revealing nothing but the halves of calves naked below the hem of her dress. The motion was to elect her as chair.

Harder is the member of Parliament for Lethbridge, Alta., and a member of the House of Commons Status of Women committee. Convention has it that the chair must be a Conservative, meaning her, Karen Vecchio or the moustachioed Martin Shields. Harder was nominated last Tuesday, but the committee walked out in protest because Harder has given money to health clinics that refuse to offer abortions. Surely, they argued, she cannot support women’s rights, so they took her down, “no” by merciless “no.”

“If the committee wishes, you can proceed by a secret ballot,” the clerk suggested. No, the committee wished to make the discomfort public. Harder sat directly across from most of the nay-sayers, close enough to pass the pepper had been sharing a meal.

Harder granted $11,681 to two pregnancy clinics in Lethbridge to hire summer employees in 2016, using money that MPs were given to create local jobs. The clinics have mandates suggesting that every child has the right to be born. The same year, Harder supported a private member’s bill that moved to make it a separate crime to kill a fetus when harming a pregnant woman. Harder has declined requests from journalists to detail her anti-abortion/pro-life profile.

Committee members worried a Chairwoman Harder would make witnesses uncomfortable, although logic doesn’t necessarily connect her abortion position to her ability to plan and time meetings. Marilyn Gladu, who served as chair for a year and a half, spoke on Parliament Hill this year during the National March for Life, and NDP MP Sheila Malcolmson said the committee was pleased with Gladu’s chairwomanship.

Entrepreneurship and fair hiring are highest on the committee’s agenda, so even if Harder strongly opposed abortion, her view may not have affected much of their business. In fact, if the committee did vote on abortion topics, it might have benefitted from a social conservative being chair because, except as tie-breakers or when the committee is considering a private bill, the chairperson does not vote.

But so-long, so-con; the committee voted Harder out and nominated a reluctant Karen Vecchio instead. “Although I appreciate the nomination,” Vecchio tried, “I would like to back down from that nomination.” The committee did not consent to withdraw the motion and elected their plan B, like it or not.

Meeting adjourned, Harder had to strategize to exit the building via escalator rather than elevator, avoiding the scrum where an NDP member was telling the world: “It’s impossible to have her as a spokesperson for our work.” But Harder hung back a moment in the room, rising from her cushioned, arm-rested seat that would never be the chair. She waited there until one woman, a staffer perhaps, came up to her and consoled her with a hug.

I can’t believe that anyone still supports her views. Anti-abortionists lost their mandate in 1986 when the Supreme Court of Canada made their ruling. Today, close to 75% of Canadians are pro-choice. Get over it people!!!

Glad she was voted out, but why are you talking about her legs? Why are you talking about her appearance? Can we not just treat women politians like actual politians? Stop commenting on the bodies and appearances of females. It has nothing to do with the story and nothing to do with their jobs. Just stop.

Only the Conservatives would have a Pro-lifer on a Status of Women Committee. While I am a fiscal conservative I refuse to support the Conservative Party as long as they continue to harbour so many social conservatives in their party. I miss the old Progressive Conservative party.

Why is killing babies so important? What if you are wrong? Why would more research not be a good idea? I’ve heard some compelling evidence that live begins at conception, despite what the news tells you.. now if that’s true, shouldn’t we look into this further?

There currently is only one major party that does not discriminate — and that is the Conservatives. JT is flying to Washington shortly to speak at a women’s conference and brag about his parties tolerance and inclusiveness — at the same time his party will not accept anyone who is pro-life. The hypocrisy is truly sad.

A fetus is NOT a parasite. Joshua Rosenau had to resigned as head of the NCSE for making that false statement. The whole story was published in Evolution News & Science Today.

The National Center for Science Education, a Darwinist public relations firm that supports litigation against educators and students who question Darwinian orthodoxy in public schools, has tried to whitewash the ugly history of scientific racism and its Darwinian roots. Yet the strain of racism and denial of full humanity to children in the womb runs deep in the scientific world to this day: DNA pioneer, Nobel laureate, and staunch Darwinist James Watson resigned his position at Cold Spring Harbor because of his claim that black people are less intelligent than white people, and the NCSE’s Program and Policy Director Joshua Rosenau has on his personal blog drawn moral parallels between unborn children and cancer and has compared the relation between a pregnant mother and her child to the relationship between a host and a parasite.

Society has established a legal point at which we consider someone “alive” – and that point is when the baby is outside the womb. But life begins at conception. That’s the point at which it has its own, unique DNA. So I can understand the pro-life side; science is on their side.

That said, I’m not advocating we make abortion illegal. But the issue is unlikely to ever go away, for the reason above.

1 – what she was wearing and how her legs looked have no bearing on this story and if you needed ‘fluff’ and ‘filler’ for your word count, perhaps talk about the history of the Committee instead of what she was wearing.

2 – to all the men who think it’s YOUR decision how the fetus inside of MY body should be handled – let all the women decide how YOUR sperm shall be handled, howzat? You have ONE ‘choice’ in the creation of the life – whether accidental, on purpose, or by force. By deciding for the woman what HER option is for the rest of her life, you are NOT advocating for an unborn fetus – you are advocating for more women dying by back-alley abortions, false ‘herbal’ remedies, and more orphaned children.

If you’re so keen on protecting the rights of the unborn, how about the rights of those who ARE born? Are you a foster parent? Have you adopted? Are you actively involved in helping those born with severe birth defects lead a fulfilling life? Are you advocating for the mental and physical health of women who, if they give birth, might die? Are you raising their other children if they do die? If you answered ‘no’ to any of these, you can either keep your opinions to yourself, or keep your penis in your pants.

Please correct me if I’m wrong. Prior to a medical professional performing an abortion, the patient undergoes at least some forms of counseling. If after said counseling, the patient still insists on having the procedure done, it shouldn’t concern anybody else. It’s not an uninformed decision.
The sad part of this discussion is that some, attempt to defend the “right to life” based on… religious mythology. Well, the good news is that not all females can be Virgin Mary’s!

Please note all the calls for vote and for studies regarding when life begins etc. More of this is what we can expect if Scheer ever gets into power He has said the his government will not initiate not introduce the abortion issue but he has signaled strongly that he would welcome the issue being raised by his back bench.

He is signalling to this followers that he is with them and he will let them(or encourage them considering how he had promoted Harder to his shadow cabinet.).
Despite all the twisting and shouting about freedom etc the upshot of the CPC efforts is to ultimately change the laws and remove freedom and the right to chose from Canadian women.

Come of it- all this lugubrious hand wringing. Scheer knew that she was unacceptable to the rest, he just wanted to stick his finger in the eye of the pro choice people to whom he is implacably opposed and to pander to his social Conservative base.

Liberal’s tabled their safe-zone legislation around abortion clinics. It was fully and unanimously passed by the Conservatives — only to be voted down by the Liberal party.

That’s right — the Liberal party voted down their OWN legislation to create safe zones around abortion providers. Now who is being divisive? Now who is supporting the safe access to abortion clinics? Now who is wasting our money and time in the Ontario legislature?

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